The New York Times published a detailed article this past weekend on radiation overdose malpractice in New York hospitals. The article reports a number of shocking instances of people who have been given too much radiation during treatment for various cancers. Many of them have suffered terrible health complications from this malpractice, including gaping wounds, loss of hearing, sight, the ability to heal, walk and otherwise function. A copy of the article can be found here.
A deceased woman’s family has been awarded $2.5 million in a medical malpracice case against the woman’s doctor for misdiagnosis of cancer. According to the family, the woman’s doctor’s negligent actions resulted in delayed treatment and severely reduced her chances of survival.
In 2004, the woman, who then was 24 years old, went to her doctor after experiencing blood in her stool. Her doctor diagnosed the problem as hemorrhoids on several occasions, but the real problem was colon and rectal cancer. Because her doctor failed to timely an properly diagnose her cancer, the woman’s condition went untreated for seven more months. She eventually died in 2007 at age 27.
The family argued that she would have had a extremely high probability of survival - 97% - if the doctor had timely diagnosed her cancer, but that due to the delay in diagnosis her survival rate fell below 50%. A copy of an article regarding the case can be found here.
I have successfully handled a number of medical malpractice / medical negligence / medical error cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland involving a failure to timely diagnose and treat cancer. In fact, I was involved in a very similar case where a man repeatedly complained of stomach pains over several years and his family doctor, without doing a colonoscopy, simply diagnosed him with irritable bowel. That is a diagnosis of last resort, which can only be made after other things have been excluded. A couple of years after the diagnosis, the man began to lose weight, have greater stomach problems and went to another doctor. He soon underwent the necessary colonoscopy and was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. After the man died, that case resulted in a multi-million dollar jury verdict.
While it is unusual to develop colon cancer at such a young age, it certainly does happen and health care providers need to be on the lookout for the unusual.
A Las Vegas jury has awarded a woman $1.5 million in a failure to diagnose cancer medical malpractice case. The woman, a 24-year-old mother, had found blood in her stool and kept having pain when she went to the bathroom. She went to local doctor who repeatedly told her that she was just suffering from hemorrhoids. Seven months after she visited the doctor, she was rushed to the emergency room because of major pain. Shortly after that, she was diagnosed with colon and rectal cancer. She died in 2007 at the age of 27.
A jury found that the doctor violated the standard of care and awarded the woman’s family $2.5 million. It is thought to be the largest medical malpractice verdict there since 2004.
The woman’s family argued that if she'd been properly diagnosed when she first visited the doctor, her chances of surviving the cancer would have been 97 percent, but because of the malpractice, her chances dropped to 50 percent by the time she was diagnosed. The family also claimed that the woman likely would be alive today if doctors had diagnosed her cancer earlier. Instead, before she died, the woman went through chemotherapy and major surgery, including the removal of her uterus and part of her lower intestines. A copy of an article regarding the case can be found here.
I have successfully handled a number of medical malpractice / medical negligence / medical error cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland involving a failure to timely diagnose and treat colon and other cancers. Some of the cases I have handled involved a failure to properly perform colonoscopies. Other cases have involved a failure to properly read pathology, such as tissue samples on slides from a biopsy during a colonoscopy. These cases are always tragic, as colon cancer is a generally curable cancer if it is caught and treated early.
An Indiana jury has returned a $8.1 million medical malpractice verdict in favor of a 33 year old mother of two, whose cancer was not timely diagnosed and treated. Apparently, the woman had a growth removed from her bit toe in 2004 by a local podiatrist, who did not test the growth at the time. When the growth resurfaced two years later, it was tested and the test revealed malignant melanoma. The woman claimed in her malpractice lawsuit that the doctor should have tested the tissue from the excised growth. Now in stage three of the cancer, she has just a 17 percent chance of living another 12 years, according to statistics
Interestingly, the doctor’s medical practice apparently failed to participate in the state program that caps malpractice damages at $1.25 million for all care providers involved in a case. Nevertheless, the doctor will be shielded by Indiana's $250,000 damages cap on all damages against individual doctors under the law. The woman’s lawyers will have to pursue attempting to recover the verdict from the doctor’s medical practice. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.
This case involves several important issues. First, is the failure to test the removed tissue. Whenever abnormal tissue is removed from the body, through a biopsy or by excision, it must be tested to determine whether it is cancerous.
Second, this case demonstrates the ill effect of low caps on damages. In my personal opinion, this doctor essentially killed this woman, but will escape any significant liability through a $250,000 cap on damages. It seems like a crime to me.
In Maryland, Maryland law, medical malpractice lawsuit damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress are capped at $650,000. But economic damages, on the other hand, such as past and future lost wages, past and future medical expenses, and lost household services, are uncapped in Maryland.
The only significant exception to the cap on non-economic damages relates to Maryland Wrongful Death cases. A Wrongful Death claim is a personal injury lawsuit that is brought due to the wrongful death of a person. It can be brought by a child, spouse or parent of the deceased person. In a Wrongful Death case in which there are two or more claimants (i.e. a spouse and child), the non-economic damage cap is limited to $812,500 (125% of $650,000). That cap also will start slowly increasing at the end of this year (December 31, 2008), when the cap is scheduled to start increasing $15,000 per year.
A New York surgeon has settled a medical malpractice case for $1.9. The Plaintiff was only 16 when doctors found a lesion on one of his ribs, more than seven years ago. The tumor was removed in 2001, but the hospital's attending pediatric surgeon allegedly failed to get all of it. Despite assurances to the contrary, the tissue turned out to be cancerous and spread to three other ribs, said the lawyer. The man had to undergo additional surgeries, radiation treatment, and now is at greater risk for reoccurrence of his cancer. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.
I have successfully handled a number of medical malpractice / medical negligence / medical error cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland, and in the District of Columbia, involving a failure to timely diagnose and treat cancer. In cases involving tumor resection, it is critical for the surgeon to make sure that what is removed is greater than the area of the tumor’s margin. This is the standard of care in these cases.
The family of a New York woman who died of a breast tumor in 2004 has been awarded more than $9 million in a medical malpractice case. The jury found that a surgeon failed to properly diagnose the mother of two, allowing her breast tumor to grow and kill her. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.
I have successfully handled a number of medical malpractice / medical negligence / medical error cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland involving a failure to timely diagnose and treat breast cancer and other cancers. Some of the cases I have handled involved a failure to properly read mammograms (negligent reading of mammograms). Other cases have involved a failure to properly read pathology such as tissue samples on slides from a biopsy.
I have even handled a case involving negligent failure to properly treat cancer, in a medical malpractice case against Kaiser. In that particular case, a woman (who happened to be a judge) was properly diagnosed with lymphoma. She eventually started chemotherapy, which lowered the ability of her immune system to fight infection. After the chemo, but while her immune system still was weakened, she developed a rash from her chemotherapy, for which her doctor negligently prescribed steroids. The problem with prescribing the steroids was that steroids tend to further reduce the immune system’s ability to fight infection and, because they act as strong anti-inflammatories, they reduce fever and make you feel better when you are sick, thereby masking infection. Unfortunately, no one ever told this to the patient, so she did not take precautions against infection (which she had been doing while on chemo). Not surprisingly, she developed an infection and never knew it. Her blood work showed it, but the doctor did not tell her about it. Sadly, one night, she became overwhelmed with meningitis and died before being able to summon help. The jury in that case awarded $2.5M to the woman’s estate and her son.
An Indiana jury has decided that a medical clinic must pay $2.75 million to a former patient for failing to test a tumor removed from the woman’s foot. A doctor later found that a second tumor removed from the foot was malignant. Jurors awarded an additional $500,000 to the woman’s husband. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.
This case involves a complete failure to test the first tumor, and the failure to alert the patient to the fact that the tumor wasn’t tested. That is a clear mistake, and is certainly medical negligence according to the standard of care. I have handled a number of cases before where tests were not properly done or interpreted.
In one such medical malpractice case in Maryland, a young girl’s leg was hurting, so her mother took her to a Baltimore hospital to be examined. The doctor didn’t want to do an x-ray, but the mother insisted. After the x-ray, the mother was told that she would be called if the x-ray was abnormal. No one ever called. Over the 8 months, the child’s leg pain got worse. When the mother decided to take her daughter to another hospital for a second opinion. That hospital asked the mother to get a copy of the x-rays from the first hospital. When the mother called the first hospital, they couldn’t find the x-rays. The mother then went to the first hospital in person, to try and get the x-rays. When she got there, she was told that the x-rays were just being read. She didn’t understand, as it has been many months since she and her daughter had been there. On her way to the second hospital, the mother got a call from the first hospital telling her that the x-ray showed evidence of bone cancer. It turned out that the films were never read until the day the mother went to pick up the films. That eight month delay in the bone cancer diagnosis allowed the cancer to spread / metastasize. As a result, the girl died before her 20th birthday. What a tragic case. Obviously, that medical malpractice case settled for a substantial amount.
In another case I handled, a young woman in Maryland had the recommended annual pap smears, which all were read as normal. But then, one year after having a normal pap smear, she had another one read as showing advanced cervical cancer. She came to see me and I ordered all of the slides from her previous pap smears. It turned out that 3 years worth of pap smears which were read as normal all showed signs of cervical cancer that were missed. Amazing. After filing suit, the case settled shortly before trial.
